I’m going to say for starters that A Matter of Size, which I saw at the annual Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, this was one of the greatest movies I have ever seen. I simply, hands-down, loved it, and it will now be in my top-5 favorite movies of all time. Second, this review will not spoil the film - I’m just going to set up the plot and mention why it was great.

A Plot about Liberation

A Matter of Size is about an Israeli man named Herzl living in the town of Ramle. In the opening scene, Herzl is thrown out of “Weight Losers,” upon being told that he’s not trying, not losing weight, and that his presence is discouraging others.

The banter between this main character and his friends as they’re ‘weighed-in’ highlights so many of the things wrong with a cultural obsession with dieting and being thin.

As we’d expect from a stereotypical Jewish mother, Herzl’s mother nags him with mixed messages: “You’re fat and you have to lose weight or you’ll die,” she says while simultaneously loading up his plate with white rice or couscous.

Herzl experiences discrimination at his job, banished to the back of the restaurant where the patrons won’t have to look at him and his societally unacceptable body. Standing up for himself, Herzl quits and begins working at a Japanese restaurant washing dishes.

Here, Herzl’s is introduced to sumo, a Japanese national sport of great honor, and becomes enamored of it. If people in Japan can be fat and respected, he decides, so can he. He convinces his friends - and a girl from Weight Losers that’s taken a shine to him - to quit trying to lose weight and to become sumo wrestlers. The owner of the Japanese restaurant starts training them, and the process of transformation they go through is wonderful and uplifting.

One of my favorite parts is the public speech Herzl gives at Weight Losers when he tells off the woman that kicked him out and demands the right to be fat and accepted. It’s quite a rousing speech for body diversity.

A Fat Acceptance Message for the Ages

And that’s just the movie’s set-up. There’s so much more, including the realization that these friends’ fatness is not the cause of their problems, the love story between Herzl and his girlfriend, Zahava (which means “gold” in Hebrew), the way Herzl learns to deal with his mother’s deprecating remarks, and the way these four very fat friends learn to love their bodies, reject society’s hatred of their fatness and embrace what their bodies can do athletically.

It’s a story of body love, regular love, personal growth, cultural challenge, societal change, pride, confidence and so much more - and all in the name of fat and size diversity. At that, one of the fat characters learns to explore his sexuality by learning about what gay bears are.

I can’t recommend this movie enough to anyone interested in anti-discrimination, size diversity, fat pride or who just likes a good old fashioned delightful comedy, because yes, it is quite funny.

I hope you’ll take the time to see A Matter of Size. If you’ve seen it or if you do, let me know what you think. What other fat-positive movies do you recommend?

Brought to you by: Plus-SizeBra.com

As an historian, Jay understands the degree to which our aesthetic judgments are shaped by our cultural surroundings, and he has studied and written about the importance of rights, respect and acceptance for all people. Jay is a member of the Association for Size Diversity and Health.